


Real Life

by scar-and-boomerang (Y_Woo)



Series: Zukka Week 2020 [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Avatar Daemons-verse, Consensual Daemon Touching, Daemon Touching, Daemons, For the most part, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-War, Sokka and Zuko being buds, Zukka Week, Zukka week 2020, canon compliant though, daemons AU, except you know, just a little bit, the Gaang chilling, zukka - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22373797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Y_Woo/pseuds/scar-and-boomerang
Summary: "It made Zuko wonder if anyone else ever realised how this isn’t just some convenience trick or tool up one’s sleeve, how truly beautiful and transcending - not just useful - seeing through the eyes of your own soul could be."Sokka follows up on his promise to teach Zuko how to see through his daemon's eyes in an attempt to undo some stress and trauma the latter still experiences in the period of restoration, immediately after the war. Set in the Avatar-verse where all the people are born with a soul-animal companion know as a "daemon", as in the style of Lyra's universe in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Contains NO His Dark Materials spoilers.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Zukka Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1607521
Comments: 10
Kudos: 264





	Real Life

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4  
> Prompt: Free Day  
> Own tags: Canon timeline, daemons AU, 'getting together' story
> 
> If you're here from Zukka week, you may need to catch up on the rest of this series (at the very least, Birds and Yesterday, and maybe Look How Far We've Come) to keep up with this AU. Because me? using Free Day as an opportunity to continue another established series of mine? more likely than you think.
> 
> I do not own any ATLA characters or storylines, or the concepts and world building done by Philip Pullman. All daemon character names and characterisation are my own. Title of story and quote are taken from the lyrics of 'Real Life' by Imagine Dragons, I do not own that either.

* * *

I wish I had the answers,  
Something you could hold on to.  
The only thing that's real to me, is you.

* * *

In hindsight, maybe he shouldn’t have been so eager to send his staff away.

After years of banishment and living first on a ship, then travelling as a refugee, Zuko hadn’t been used to getting served and waited on. Sure, he’d come back to live in the palace for a brief couple months, but even that memory only brought back a sour taste in his mouth. So when the staff came and offered to help him with his robes, he declined as respectfully as possible.

It turned out, however, he had forgotten that he could barely lift his arms without stretching the crisscrossing burns ingrained into the skin of his chest, and sending sharp, pulling pain across his body. Hikari tried her best to assist, lifting the heavy fabric with her beak and fluttering her wings desperately, but didn’t make much progress on that front, either.

Just as Zuko growled and was considering swallowing his pride to call his helpers back, however, a deep voice rung out from the doorframe, monotone, but with just a hint of amused friendliness.

“You need some help with that?”

Zuko’s head snapped up to the doorway upon recognising the voice, a blush blooming across his face as he became increasingly aware of his state of undress and the fact that between trying to save the Earth Kingdom from being burnt down to ash and not getting disintegrated himself by his sister, he had completely forgotten about the mess he had left behind, relationship-wise.

Before he could compose himself enough to dignify her with a response, Hikari dropped Zuko’s robes, gave a delighted whoop of joy, and plunged into the air. “Surudoi!” She called out to Mai’s large black snake, who was slithering his way towards them.

“Mai! You’re okay!” Zuko said happily as Mai let out a dry chuckle, stepped forward, and helped drape Zuko’s clothes on his shoulders properly. “They let you out of prison?”

“My uncle pulled some strings. And it doesn’t hurt when the reason you were arrested in the first place is for helping out the new Fire Lord.”

“So does this mean you don’t hate me anymore?” The new Fire Lord in question asked her hopefully. He could see Hikari continuing to circle the black snake in the corner of his vision, occasionally landing on the large reptile’s scaled body and pecking the shiny skin playfully. Surudoi indulged her patiently.

“Get Ty Lee released and we’ll call it even.” Mai requested.

“Ty Lee? Did she betray Azula as well?”

“Yeah, right after you guys left and Azula had me cornered, she made to firebend at me and that was the last straw for Ty Lee. She chi-blocked your sister and we got arrested together. We were put in separate prisons though. I stayed at the Boiling Rock, and she was taken away to the detention centre here in the Capital.”

“That should be easy enough to process. That was pretty awesome of her, though.” Zuko commented, vaguely remembering that was where Suki mentioned the rest of the Kyoshi warriors may be kept as well. He should be able to get all of them out by the day’s end.

“Really was. She’s awesome like that.” Mai noted, allowing the genuine compliment to be voiced in confidentiality between the two of them, where Ty Lee wasn’t around to hear and get so excited over it she started dishing out hugs. “Well, I’ll leave you to your Fire Lord-y business. And next time, don’t be too much of a stubborn ass to ask the servants for help, or I’ll summon that Water Tribe girl on you.”

Zuko watched her back as she turned to leave, feeling a sense of confusion and incompleteness settle in his stomach as she was about to disappear around the corner outside his room.

“Wait, Mai, stop.” He called out before he could think better of it. Mai obliged, but kept her back facing him. Her daemon turned around and lifted half of his impressive length off the ground, and stared at Zuko unblinkingly in a way that Zuko had long been used to, but still managed to be unsettled about every time. “About us, this…”

He trailed off, forcing himself to hold Surudoi’s gaze because somehow, he always had a feeling that Mai could tell if he was looking at her daemon or not.

“I don’t hate you for doing what you did, Zuko.” Mai said softly, voice carrying in a way that _almost_ sounded like it was Surudoi saying it, but the snake’s mouth remained unmoving, and the voice had been Mai’s.

“And I’m proud of what you did for this country, as a friend. But I don’t think, romantically, this is going to work out. On my side, it was a fulfilment of a childhood crush. On yours, it was you sister’s way of manipulating you. I don’t think either of us will ever really recover from the twisted start given to our relationship, and build something healthy out of it. You kept me happy and safe during a turbulent time in this palace under your father’s rule, for that I am grateful. But it’s a new era, and I look forward to figuring out where I am in a country of freedom and recovery, led by a kind and competent Fire Lord.”

The finality in her tone marked the end of her speech and their romance, and as she continued on without waiting for his response, vanishing around the corner of the corridor, Zuko felt a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth as the guilt and awkwardness in his chest started to untangle itself from his sinews finally.

Trust Mai to take it on herself to give both of them the closure that he was too stupid to deliver with a hastily scribbled note and an empty bed.

* * *

He had insisted on inviting representatives from lands of all three elements for his coronation, even if it meant putting the ceremony off until much later. He wanted the world to see for themselves what the new Fire Lord was like, rather than letting speculative rumours that he couldn’t control spread.

In a way, it worked to his advantage to have the extra time to restore himself somewhat back to health, give orders as the prince regent to retrieve some of the troops in the Earth Kingdom states that they had not managed to colonise yet, and encourage some level of goodwill as far as diplomacy is concerned. Any little progress counted.

The rest of the group stayed at the palace with him to await being reunited with friends and relatives before they could part ways to different corners of the world. They helped Zuko draft rough plans and pitch ideas on the main course of actions over the next couple of months, prioritising what needs to be done and brainstorming connections they could call upon to speed things up. However, sometimes paperwork and formal procedures were a one man job, and the rest of them were left free to explore the palace grounds.

The papers for Ty Lee to be released from the detention centre were processed quickly as Zuko had promised, and he made sure all other war prisoners from the Black Sun invasion and other various battles were free to go while he was at it as well. Soon, a white spotted cat could be seen running alongside meerkats and pine martens, play-fighting as their Kyoshi warrior humans coordinated chi-blocking techniques into their combat routines.

The afternoon before the coronation, Hikari, bored from perching on Zuko’s shoulders as he thumbed through contracts and decrees and military deployment forms, snuck outside through the window to join the fun beside the newly-refurbished turtleduck pond.

“Hikari!” It was Sokka’s large, colourful duck who spotted the small goldfinch first. Rikki was splashing around eagerly in the pond among small turtle-ducklings half his size. Upon seeing the bird flying towards them, he called out eagerly. “Is Zuko with you?”

“Nah. He’s still working.” She replied, rolling her eyes and landing on top of the white-tailed mongoose resting on Suki’s lap.

“Dear spirits, you’d think he’d at least give himself the day off before his coronation.”

“He stress works and you know it.”

Mags, who was now completely grey after shedding his winter coat and had been paddling by his brother in the water lazily, gave a startled cry and leapt out of the water, revealing a star-nosed mole hanging onto his tail by his sharp teeth.

“Toph!” Katara yelled from the shore, rubbing her tailbone where her fox had been bitten, “keep your daemon off mine!”

Said earthbender girl cackled evilly.

“I still can’t believe how strong a swimmer Yoyo is.” Suki remarked, watching the mole sink below the surface once more, soon leaving no sign of his existence to anyone watching from the surface, save for the rapid succession of tiny air bubbles making their way to the surface.

The youngest girl puffed up proudly, “he can smell and locate things underwater too, what do you know, everyone has hidden talents.”

“Speaking of swimming, Ev and Kari, are you guys going to join or what?” Mags, who had recovered from the prank by Yoyo, invited the two animals still sitting on the bank. He was still swimming in slow circles to remain afloat, sending ripples across the surface of the pond where only the turtleducks were visible now - Rikki had dived below water to chase after Yoyo.

“Nah, we’re good.” Eimhin chuckled lightly, declining the offer. He laid down and curled up comfortable in Suki’s lap, the girl stroking her idly, careful to avoid the bird still sat on Eimhin’s belly, not wanting to touch another’s daemon without permission.

They lounged about for a bit, Katara leaning on Sokka’s shoulders, the latter had his feet dangled in the water by the edge of the pond, and Suki sat beneath the tree with a loaf of bread. Toph sat next to them, idly reshaping a small patch of ground, the only one not watching the three daemons smash about in the pond.

After a while, Sokka stood up abruptly, earning a small protest from his younger sister as he shook her head off his shoulders. “I’m going to drag Zuko out for some air before he breaks himself.” He declared, making his way indoors.

His knee had more or less healed enough to bear weight without crutches now, though he still limped slightly, visible to anyone who cared to look. Rikki sighed dramatically, and hoisted himself out of the pond from its edge, shaking his feathers.

“I suppose that’s my cue to leave as well.” He declared, waddling up to his human’s feet, looking up at him expectantly.

“Nuh-uh!” Sokka shook his head vehemently, “no way i’m carrying you before you dry up.”

“I’ll come with!” Hikari called out happily, launching herself off of the mongoose and trailed after them. “You need all the help you can get getting his stubborn backside out of the house.”

They walked through the long corridors, passing several palace staff who scurried back and forth holding plates or cleaning supplies, casting them curious glances as they walked past their side. Finally, reaching the residential wing of the palace, they entered the doorway to Zuko’s old bedroom, which he returned to after the war, declining the Fire Lord’s chambers.

Sure enough, they found the boy hunched over the table, only making use of the brilliant afternoon sunlight to light his desk and the papers he was working through. His brow was creased and he chewed his lips in troubled concentration.

It hit Sokka with a pang that the other boy was not much older than the rest of them, and he struggled to imagine what it was like to have the responsibility of leading a whole country place on his shoulders. He’d expected that he would need to take on major tasks with helping to rebuild his Water Tribe soon, but he knew he always had his father to fall back on. As much as all of them tried to make things easier for Zuko, ultimately the sixteen-year-old was the sole ruler of the Fire Nation.

No wonder he’s stressed out of his mind.

Sokka padded unnoticed across the room and round to the back of the other boy, placing himself between Zuko’s back and the window looking out to the courtyard, and laid a hand gently on the nape of the Fire Lord’s neck.

Zuko started, looking up to see the Water Tribe boy gazing down at his with a mild smile on his lips. “Oh, it’s you.” He sighed, rubbing at his temples. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, all’s good. I’m just here to see if you want to stretch a little, do some sparring, maybe join the others at the pond?” Zuko cast one longing look out the window that made Sokka’s heart ache, and opened his mouth to object, only to be cut off before he could compose a sentence. “Come on, the coronation’s tomorrow, and the day after that we’re all leaving. You gotta cherish the time you still had with us, all together.”

They enjoyed a little more than a full month of relaxing and bouncing back from the war together, but after the coronation, they had agreed that Aang would have to help with demilitarising in a more hands-on manner at greater proximity, Katara would split her time between helping him and overseeing affairs in the Southern Water Tribe, Suki would take the rest of her warriors back to Kyoshi to regroup, and nobody knew exactly what Toph would be off doing, but she didn’t feel comfortable with sticking around after everyone else had left either way. Sokka himself had decided that he would be shadowing his father full time in the tribe, helping to run things and rebuild the village.

Still though, it had been a low blow to bring up the impending separation of the group as ammunition to talk Zuko out of overworking himself to the brink of collapse, as evident by the tensing and stilling of his shoulders.

“Hey, remember a while back at the temple I promised to show you and Kari how to scry?” Sokka pushed on through Zuko’s hesitation.

“You said you’re going to teach him _what now_?” Hikari asked from Zuko’s shoulder.

“Scrying, it’s where Zuko could see through his daemon’s eyes — your eyes — basically.”

“No way! We could do that?” The goldfinch’s high, melodic voice shrieked as she hopped up and down her human’s shoulder repeatedly, flapping her wings in excitement under the amused gaze of Sokka and Rikki. “We’ve got to try! We’ve got to try before they leave. Please, Zuko? _Pleeeeaaase_?”

Zuko laid his brush down on the ink tray, sighing now that he knew there was no getting out of it as soon as his daemon had gotten involved. He stood up, faced the other boy, and grinned a reluctant grin.

“Whatever happened to spending time with _everybody_?” He teased.

“Awh, man. Screw everybody.”

“Rikki.” Sokka scolded his daemon, before turning back to Zuko and reached out for the latter’s hand. “Come on.” He prompted once more, tugging on his arm and leading him, half jogging, half stumbling, out the door and into the yard.

* * *

“I think I’m starting to get this.” Zuko called out, eyes still screwed tight and face still scrunched in concentration, trying to grasp onto the brief flashes of blue sky and brown rooftops sent from his other pair of eyes above. “I’m still seeing in flashes, but they are brighter.”

“Good, now concentrate on those flashes, really focus on interpreting where the images came from, and feel yourself there seeing them. Reach for your connection with Hikari.”

He had to admit that the Water Tribe boy was a really decent teacher. He instructed in a way that wasn’t as cryptic as his uncle, who more or less taught only philosophy and left him to figure out the practicals on his own, but also not as mindlessly blunt as the firebending masters from his childhood, whose military drill-styled training may have benefitted Azula, but worked as well as seasoning a rock with salt on him.

Sokka reminded him of Piandao in his mannerisms. And that, coming from Zuko, was about as much a compliment and one can get in the teaching department.

Taking a deep breath, Zuko closed his eyes and reached out again, finding the connection tethering him and his goldfinch like a string, and giving it a tentative tug. Suddenly, he let out a soft gasp as the darkness in his vision opened up, and he _saw_.

The uniform green of the neatly trimmed grass rolled out beneath him, and the water of the turtleduck pond reflecting tiles of rooftops, surface tranquil now that it was too cold for the animals to play in. On the bank next to the pond, his new family were heaped on top of each other, giggling and shoving playfully, enjoying the rare chance of being able to live their age without the adult responsibilities on their shoulders.

Hikari circled back then, and in the courtyard he saw… them. A blue figure and a red one, standing shoulder to shoulder, and Zuko could feel a smile creeping up on his lips as Hikari landed back on him. He kept his eyes closed, still seeing through his daemon’s as they gazed upon the face of the other boy. It felt strange, seeing him from a new set of eyes. He never noticed the warmth of Sokka’s gaze, or the way his lips arced up easily into a soft grin.

It made Zuko wonder if anyone else ever realised how this isn’t just some convenience trick or tool up one’s sleeve, how truly beautiful and transcending - not just useful - seeing through the eyes of your own soul could be.

When the dusk began to creep up the horizon and the dim evening haze enveloped the caldera, the two boys decided to call it a day, much to the delight of their daemons, who were finding the activity too full of work and not enough play for an end-of-war celebration.

“You’re picking this up really fast.” Sokka told Zuko, giving him a solid slap on the back, “just take it easy, and keep pushing the distance and time between you two, and try to hold the vision more steadily.”

Zuko nodded thoughtfully, processing everything from the session. “Thanks, Sokka. You’re a really great teacher, you know.”

“Thanks, man. I’m sure my mum was better though. I did learn everything daemons related from her when I was a kid.” The Water Tribe boy admitted, blushing, “Katara wasn’t old enough back then, and I offered to teach her after mum was gone, but she never quite got the hang of it. I always thought that maybe if she was still around to teach her instead of me, Katara would have gotten it by now.”

“You got me through it.” Zuko offered, “and you explained it really well. You gotta stop selling yourself short, you have amazing potential in leadership.”

Sokka looked up at him and grinned, then, and Zuko couldn’t help but return the infectious happiness radiating from him.

“So is it normal to get a headache from doing this witchy voodoo or do I need medical attention?” Hikari asked, breaking the silence between them.

“Yep, it’s what you get for allowing human bullshit into your head.”

“Hey, not cool.” Sokka scolded Rikki for his reply mildly as the four strolled back into the building, Zuko idly lighting the lamps in the long, dark corridors along the way with his fingertips, until they reached the dining room to join the rest of the teens in their meal.

“Where have you been?” Toph yelled through a mouthful of noodles, being the first to sense their arrival, “we totally thought you have been kidnapped.”

“You guys sure seem to have a lot of appetite for people who think we’ve been kidnapped.” Rikki quipped back, fluttering onto the table and almost knocking over a bowl of rice set out for the missing boys in two vacant places.

“No daemons on the table!” Katara stood up and reprimanded the duck, who rolled his eyes and hopped off promptly, “and we didn’t really, Toph’s just being dramatic. We thought you could use the alone time, anyway.”

“Thanks” Zuko said, pulling out the chair and sat down.

He and his daemon looked at each other, wordlessly marvelling at the difference in atmosphere of the room as they remembered the tense family dinners sat through in the very place, sitting opposite his mother or sister, under the piercing scrutiny of Ozai and Thera over the years. There was a warmth now as they both felt the ghost from the past driven out of the window, from behind the tapestry where Hikari used to hide as a parakeet or pigeon, and an animated laughter ringing melodically through the air from his newfound family. The family he was always destined to have.

Smiling privately to himself, he picked up a pair of chopsticks, raised his cup subtly to return the gesture of Sokka toasting him from the adjacent seat, and began to eat.

* * *

Panic gripped at his heart and there was an intense, sharp pressure on his face. He was surrounded by white, blinding blankness stretching above, below, and around him in dizzying vertigo. The pressure grew on his face, he thought it was freezing at first, until he realised that it was burning, scorching so hot it felt icy cold.

He gasped, doubled over, and clawed at his skin. That was when the squeezing started. His heart twisted, chest constricted, leaving him spluttering for breath. Scrunching his eyes shut he barely choked out a sob as he scrambled to escape the invisible pain surrounding him.

The blank and directionless world started spinning then, or at least it felt like it. The frozen heat spread until it felt like flames were licking and biting at every patch of his skin. He curled in on himself and pressed lower, trying to find the ground and steady his body. How could he have the sensation of floating when it felt ask if his blood had turned to lead? His ribcage was bending inward, caving in on his own chest. How had his bones not snapped from bending so violently yet? Everything on him was on fire, but where was the flame?

His daemon was nowhere to be found. He stared around into the white void around him, no bird or any animal to be found. _Kari, where was Kari?_ He wanted Kari, his daemon, his _soul_. Where was his soul?

He was drifting, darting away, lost in the blinding eternity…

“Hey, hey, Zuko? It’s okay, you’re okay.” A familiar voice jerked him back to reality. Zuko gasped out a sob as the blissful darkness returned, burying his face deep against the solidness in front of him, blinking away the remnants of light pinpricks left in his vision and grounding himself on the persisting voice. “You’re okay, you’re here, you’re fine.”

“Sokka.” He rasped, gaining back enough composure to identify the source of the voice. He realised after a while that the solid warmth he’d been leaning against was, in fact, the other boy’s chest, dressed in plain nightclothes.

He pushed himself slowly out of Sokka’s embrace, and stared at him in the light of the dim, flickering candles hazily.

“Bad dream?” Sokka prompted.

“Yeah, I dreamed of the Agni Kai with my father. The one I told you about.” Zuko explained with a weak, sheepish chuckle. “At least, I think it was. I haven’t had that dream in a while, it’s changed… evolved. It’s more vague now and disorienting, rather than the memory playing out as it is, it’s more the feeling it induces, and all the more terrifying. Guess the stress finally got to me.”

“You really gotta take it easy, look after yourself for the entire world’s sake, you know?”

“I’ll try.” Zuko reassured him, “did I wake you?”

“My room was pretty close to yours, I guess. It’s fine though,” Sokka added quickly in response to the apologetic expression worn on the young Fire Lord’s face at the admission, “I had an early night anyway.” He reassured in a tone which made it very clear they both knew Zuko did not go to sleep at a reasonable hour like he had.

Zuko nodded. “Thanks for coming either way. Not sure how long I’d be trapped in the nightmare if you hadn’t pulled my out of it.”

On his bedpost, Hikari let out a soft, distressed chirp which made it evident she had shared the unpleasant sensation of the dream as her human. Instinctively, Sokka reached out, only to stop short with his fingertip an inch away from her soft feathers as he looked to Zuko for permission.

It was the daemon herself who closed the final distance between them, stepping forth to touch her beak gingerly to the hovering fingers of the other human, and then her head, and then the entire length of her brightly feathered coat.

Electricity ran down Zuko’s spine the minute Hikari made contact with the other human’s fingers. It reminded him of how his mother used to stroke his back slowly to get him to fall asleep, warmness spread across his muscles, lessening the strain in each strand of sinew as he felt himself come undone under the ghostly touch on his skin. He watched the little songbird spread her wings, and Sokka moved his hands to run over the delicate feathers on its underside, feeling the intimacy and trust between the bond of human and soul.

“Now we’re even.” Zuko whispered hoarsely.

And suddenly Sokka’s warm lips were on his. Zuko’s eyes fluttered close as he tasted the heat of the skin. Reaching out a hand to cup the other boy’s cheek, holding them in place and in time, guarded by the dark of the night and the promise of peace. The world around them froze, and only they were still moving, pressing into each other, sharing the air they breathe and closing the space between them.

“Stay.” Zuko pleaded, and that was invitation enough for Sokka to slot himself into his embrace and pull the blanket over them both, slipping into a calm slumber.

For the first time in years, Zuko woke up tranquilly. They were still stuck together, limbs tangled with each other’s and tethered to the other’s body like a lifeline. In the far end of the bed, A duck and a goldfinch heaped together, curled snugly in each other’s wings like they had belonged to each other their entire lives.

“Stay.” Zuko repeated, staring intensely into Sokka’s eyes, which were still glazed over with the remnants of sleep, though the meaning of the proposition had changed since the night before, and both of them knew it.

“I want to, Zuko. You know I do.” Sokka told him, laying his head back onto Zuko’s arm on the bed where it had been before a shift slipped it off during the night, “but my dad needs me now. The Water Tribe needs me now. There’s so much to do, and I can’t turn my back on my home as much as you could.”

Zuko sighed in understanding. He knew the answer before he made the request, and had expected the response. Still, he couldn’t help the sinking in his stomach as he knew that after today, they weren’t going to see each other for a while.

It wasn’t fair, they were just kids. To lose someone to responsibilities of world and nations right after having found them, that was a sacrifice they never should have to know. And not for the first time Zuko felt as if he was given a destiny bigger than himself and his own happiness, and the thought of that became too overwhelming for him to cope with.

“One day,” Sokka promised, his voice, as always, breaking Zuko out from his torrent of thoughts and pulling him back to solid reality, “when this is all over, truly over. I’ll come back to you. I promise. I’m sorry it took so long for us to find each other.”

“I think that one’s mainly on me.” Zuko admitted half jokingly, half sheepishly.

“But one day we’ll have all the time in the world.”

Today Zuko will step out to face people rooted in all the elements around the world, and daemons of a wide array of animal forms, to stand before them and next to the Avatar, and make his oath to rule this nation to the best of his ability, to lead it into a new era of peace and unity in an attempt to unravel the wrong that had been wrought upon the world by three generations of his ancestors. He would ask for the forgiveness of the other tribes and kingdoms, and hope to one day earn it after he has carved out a new and worthy name for the once great Fire Nation.

But lying here, looking into the deep blue eyes of a certain Water Tribe boy who had anchored him through the hectic war, shown him right from wrong, and taught him the real strength of a man, he couldn’t help but feel like the coronation wouldn’t be the brightest beginning for him today.

“I’ll wait for you.” For now, he gave his own, private oath to a single other soul.


End file.
